Whitney Thore weighs 143kg. She also loves to dance. Really, really loves to dance. The joy on her face is contagious and her pure adoration for what she is doing is evident in every movement.
And so, earlier this year, Whitney – who works as a radio producer – was encouraged by her colleagues to film herself dancing. She then shot a number of videos and uploaded the series on YouTube. She called the series, “A Fat Girl Dancing”.
The series had millions of hits. One video alone currently has almost three million views. Take a look:
Whitney explains, through another video on her blog, that she used to be within a healthy weight range. But at the age of 12, weighing 52kg, disordered eating and depression started to kick in and for years her weight fluctuated (and that was very much brought on by polycystic ovarian syndrome, a hormonal condition which can cause rapid weight gain and make it exceptionally difficult to lose weight.)
For years, Whitney struggled with self-doubt and self-loathing until one day she decided to upload her dance videos on YouTube. As she told Insight this week:
I had to just finally start living the way that I wanted to and stop waiting to be the right weight. Stop waiting to look the right way to do what I loved and what I loved to do, and what I always did growing up was dance.
Through the videos, she’s received a huge wave of support from viewers all over the world who have seen her videos and identified with them somehow:
My inbox exploded with messages from all over the world from people saying that watching me dance had made them cry or changed their life. This was overwhelming to me –- and very telling of the society we operate in.
While some are OK with it and some are not (I try to force myself not to scroll through the YouTube comments), one thing is obvious: it’s different. It’s different and it’s shocking, to some degree, but it shouldn’t be.
It’s true – some of the YouTube comments on the video are absolutely hideous. They are cruel and they are mocking and they don’t see anything other than her size. But they further inspired Whitney to launch the movement she’s been working on – the No Body Shame movement.
It’s a movement that aims to eradicate all types of body shame. It’s aimed at men, women and even children. It’s for everyone who has ever been told that they’re too fat. Or too skinny. Or too tall. Or too curvy. It’s for everyone that has ever been shamed for any part of their body, no matter what size or shape they might be.
It encourages everyone to live their lives to the fullest. To appreciate their bodies and not let ANYTHING hold them back, regardless of what other people might say or think.
It encourages people to post videos of themselves dancing, even if they’re 143kg and it may seem like a shocking thing to do.
It’s an incredibly powerful movement. Take a look:
If you’d like to support the No Body Shame campaign, check out their website here or take a look at their Facebook page. The Facebook page is full of all kinds of incredible images and videos of Whitney dancing.
Top Comments
For those "concerned" that she can't make it through the routine, I'm not quite as big as she is, but I'm not that far off and I'm not about to die after a minute and a half of dancing.
On the contrary, I walk my dog daily, go to the gym a few times a week (where I miraculously survive 40 minutes on a bike at a respectable speed) and I too, dance (and sing at the same time, and get paid for it).
Yet, I remain fat. Not because I eat a tub of butter as a snack, but because like Whitney, I have PCOS. I have lost weight, and am always trying to lose more, but when the only way that happens is a calorie intake that would be considered a dangerous eating disorder for a skinny girl, it's difficult. You try literally starving yourself and spending hours at the gym to lose .025 kgs in a week and tell me the motivation is easy to come by.
So yeah, I'm physically fit, my diet is healthier than most people I know, my cholesterol is fabulous, but I'm still fat. It's not a matter of just "dancing more" but thanks for your worry and your assumptions.
Amen, sister!!! PCOS is bloody horrible thing to have. I wonder if people go around saying to women, you should wax those hairy arms, or grow some more hair on your head to fix that male-pattern baldness. Maybe you should do something about the acne you seem to have, in your 30s! What do you mean, you can't fall pregnant? No, because that would be rude. But telling people they could lose some weight? No problem!
So true Lisa, some people just seem to think that a person who puts on weight doesn't have a mirror or clothes that don't fit anymore and just insist on saying, "geez you've put on some weight". I always say "yes I know but if I try hard I might lose this weight, unlike you, stuck with that stupid head of yours". It's equally insulting I know and I don't like to stoop to that level but sometimes I think simpletons just need to hear it.
As a dance teacher, I can easily say she's awesome.. and her weight does not impede her timing and execution of the moves one bit!! amazing.